Waiting for Lorelei: Olivia Arthur and Family at Home

Magnum Home, is a project that saw a large cross section of Magnum Photographers, based all over the world, present a portrait of what the concept of ‘Home’ means to them. Last week, as the group exhibition opened in London, we presented British Magnum photographer Mark Power’s  portrait of a changing family dynamic, as his daughter Chilli left her home in Brighton to begin university in London. Here, we present London-based Magnum photographer Olivia Arthur’s intimate document of domestic life as her young family prepared to grow to four, with the birth of her second child – a daughter named Lorelei.

Home for me has always been about family. Growing up, we moved house every few years. There was no particular place that held all my childhood memories together. But there was family, and importantly my siblings, of which I have three. We were, and continue to be, extremely close. Now I have a family of my own, with my husband, our daughter Thea and our second child, who was on her way when I was making these pictures.

As we all looked forward to her arrival, there was also suspense in not knowing how it would change things in our family. I don’t normally photograph too intensely at home. As a photographer I am always going away for work and so coming home is the time when I take my photographer hat off and take pictures just for us. But a combination of the feeling of anticipation, and the belief that this would be the last time I would be pregnant, changed that for me. Suddenly, this period of waiting became the most important thing I could record.